


on swords left unsharpened (and things that came after)

by ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Dream Team SMP Spoilers, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fire, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Toby Smith | Tubbo, Semi-graphic violence, Technoblade-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo-centric, no beta we die like wilbur soot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28580526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes/pseuds/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes
Summary: Techno stands over Tommy, cowering on the ground, and asks if Tubbo is next. And the thing about Tubbo is that he says no. And the thing about Techno is that he stands in that glorious beam of sunlight like a hero from a fable and his snout twists up in something a little confused. And the thing is that Technoblade nods and Tubbo picks up what is left.-Tubbo and Technoblade are two sides of the same coin, in a never-ending dance, always crossing paths and never meeting in the middle.
Relationships: Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo & Technoblade, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Comments: 18
Kudos: 231
Collections: Completed stories I've read





	on swords left unsharpened (and things that came after)

_i. He said, Marie,_

_Marie, hold on tight. And down we went._

_In the mountains, there you feel free._

  
  


The hard part is making.

This is something Tubbo learns when he is young. There are things in this world that are easy and making something is not one of them. Tubbo’s father, who is a blurry face and a body that is always changing and eyes that are a different colour than his, tells him this when he is small. The hard part is putting something together.

The hard part is that Tubbo wakes up one morning and there is no drama to it, no letter to explain. There was a piece and then there is not one. Tubbo goes looking. He finds nothing.

The thing about Tubbo’s father is that he is hardly a memory, but he gave Tubbo a book about wasps. The thing about Tubbo is that he is eight years old and Phil finds him on the sidewalk in heavy Autumn rain and asks him where his parents are, and then puts a wing over his head like an umbrella when he says he does not know.

The book gets wet. Tubbo dries it off but it is still darker than it should be, and it still crinkles roughly when he turns the pages.

Phil’s son Tommy is made of lightning. Phil’s son Wilbur is made of cool water. The family is a storm that Tubbo is only a witness to.

Tommy gives him a book about bees, and Tubbo likes those more. But the thing about Tubbo is that he holds onto things he doesn’t like because they are important, and wasps are important to him.

The hard part is that Wilbur leaves and he comes back different and wrong and bent out of shape. The hard part is that Phil’s friend Technoblade stops by and teaches Tubbo how to properly aim a crossbow and then he leaves with Phil at his side.

The hard part is that Tommy and Tubbo grasp each other by the hands and dream up some magnificent thing with no clear face and a body that keeps changing and eyes that see the light.

The hard part is making. The easy part is how it falls to pieces.

Technoblade grins, his teeth as white as snow, the sun that bounces off of them equally as blinding.

Techno stands over Tommy, cowering on the ground, and asks if Tubbo is next. And the thing about Tubbo is that he says no. And the thing about Techno is that he stands in that glorious beam of sunlight like a hero from a fable and his snout twists up in something a little confused. And the thing is that Technoblade nods and Tubbo picks up what is left.

Tommy wages war. Tubbo does not. Things end. These are laws of nature. The world falls to pieces, but Tubbo keeps his books.

(The easy part is breaking.

Techno grabs a fistful of snow and crushes it to dust. He stays up long after Phil goes to sleep forging armour and swords. The easy part is driving a pickaxe into the ice and baring his teeth and declaring himself the rightful lord of everything. The easy part is snapping Tommy’s bow in half.

The thing about Techno is that he is good at breaking things to tiny little pieces and he is good at not heeding the warning in a battle cry. The thing about Techno is that he sees a little boy with a head full of ice chunks and ideas too big for his skull and the boy says “I will not fight you.”

Not “I don’t want to” or “I can’t” but “I will not fight you.”

And the easy part is that Technoblade has never read War and Peace, and neither has Tubbo.

The easy part is that Techno knows that harming a creature that will not fight back is the mark of a coward. So Technoblade does not harm the little ant that gently shakes it’s head at him, because he is not a coward.

He makes himself a crown when no one else will give him one. He traces old carvings in the ice walls, smoothes them over, carves in new ones.

Phil says, “I’d like to see the world fall,” and Techno loves him dearly. His greatest friend in all the Earth. He’d like to rule together.

The easy part is shattering everything. The easy part is the way that Wilbur glares and rants and spits. The easy part is the soaring feeling in Technoblade’s stomach and the hot tears that creep up behind him and the magnificent glory of having done something worthwhile.

The hard part is picking up the pieces afterwards, so Techno moves on to something new.

The dirt gets inside of him. He swallows gravel. Phil goes home and Techno does not have one. This is the way of things. Techno keeps his head up and his back straight and his teeth sharp enough to tear the world in half.)

_ii. “I never know what you are thinking. Think.”_

_I think we are in rats’ alley_

_Where the dead men lost their bones._

There are three important things that all happen very quickly.

Number one is Wilbur, who is counted because he is an event in himself. Wilbur has always been water but today he is a hurricane, is yelling so loud his voice breaks and he spits and he keeps speaking. Tubbo ventures down into the nether and when Wilbur thanks him his voice crackles like the fire of a blaze. Number one is Wilbur, who is number one because his footsteps break apart the ground and fill in the seams with gold. The walls touch the sky. The tower of babel hangs in Tubbo’s periphery, but he does not lock eyes with it.

Number two is the fire, which is important but not spoken of. Tubbo is sleeping and the smoke drags its fingers down the skin of his lungs, wraps its hand around his throat. He jumps out the window and rolls onto the ground. The only thing he saves is his book and he has never felt less pathetic for sleeping with it by his side. He finds Tommy before he can open his eyes. He clings and scratches and fists his hands in Tommy’s shirt and he is going to be free if it is the last thing he does.

Number three is the Declaration of Freedom. Whenever he thinks of number three it feels as if it should be more important. There are so many things that happened after and before, and all of them meant something and all of them left Tubbo with some kind of gaping wound inside, but when he thinks back to the third most important thing it is always standing on that rooftop, laughing and alive, every muscle and tendon snapping like rubber bands inside of him because it was real. Because it meant something.

There are little things that happen between two and three that Tubbo does not count. It is him and Eret farming and mining and building together. It is brewing potions with Wilbur until his eyes are too heavy to stay open. It is a bench and a playthrough of Mellohi and a house in the jungle he almost retreats to and pulling Tommy’s body out of the lake and watching it turn to dust in his hands.

He does not count those for good reason.

His bones feel sharper now. He keeps his book in his jacket.

(Technoblade arrives in the night, tusks unpolished, fur unkempt, and three important things happen within the week.

The first is the way that the pieces of his chest shift and click into place as he learns what he is being asked of him. He is not a weapon to be wielded by anyone but himself, and Wilbur does not ask for different. Wilbur asks that he work for himself and his keep. Tommy tries to make a home for himself inside the cave and it is clear that he is not doing well with it. Phil talked about his children a lot, in colder weather than this, and his youngest child was always a mysterious case of monuments to the greatness of no one in particular and things without meaning treasured more than diamonds.

The second thing is that the ant is back, and he can still carry just as much weight. Tubbo still knows how to shoot a crossbow, although he tells Techno that he will not use it. Back to the same thing that Techno does not understand. Tubbo tills dirt with him and automates his farm. The little ant is just as tiny as before, but he holds himself much different now. Techno asks the ant if he has killed before. The ant shakes his head. Techno asks the ant if he will kill if he needs to. The ant gives the same response and straightens his back. The ant has grown, but he has not changed at all.

The third thing is that Technoblade does not care. He sharpens his tusks and his swords and the worthiness turns his bones silver. He will do good tonight.)

_iii. Here, said she,_

_Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,_

_(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)_

The concrete tears his fingernails. Tubbo bloodies his knuckles and cuticles scraping for a way out. He screams himself hoarse.

The easy part about the day he dies is that nothing goes wrong before it all does. He buttons up his suit. All the games work out like planned. Schlatt puts a hand on his shoulder as they stand in front of the podium and says “I’m proud of you,” and Tubbo’s heart stutters.

The easy part is that he’s memorized his speech. The easy part is that Tommy’s eyes make him feel safe. The easy part is that Wilbur pulls him aside before it and asks a question Tubbo already knows the answer to. It is unfair and it is too heavy a decision but it is easy, at the least.

The easy part is begging for his life.

The easy part is staring Technoblade in the eyes and knowing how it will end. The hard part is waking up after.

Dying is bleeding and tearing and too bright and too loud and too long. It takes so long to die. When Tubbo wakes in his bed at home, paralyzed and shaking, he knows that the hard part is just starting.

His book about wasps was in his pocket, and it has melted to his skin.

(The hard part is that Technoblade shines the sun through a magnifying glass and burns an ant alive. The hard part is that he is a coward. The hard part is he didn’t have a choice.

The easy part is pulling the trigger the second time.)

_iv.“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,_

_“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?_

Tubbo stands on one side of the Earth, feeling it tilt away from him. His bones light up. He’s grabbed the future by the coattails and refused to let go, and the ground shifts beneath him as the world spins in double time.

The problem is that Technoblade is not speaking to him.

The problem is picking up afterwards. He tugs his heart up to stand by the strings, tames it’s beating. The problem is the people that arrive in the days that follow and the problem is the boiling in his gut and the way he finds Wilbur’s body.

The problem is that Wilbur left a body. Tubbo does not cry and the second most important thing repeats itself as his torch makes Wilbur’s bloody clothes catch light.

The problem is that Tubbo is angry and for the first time in his life he is left with the choice.

He used to call himself a pacifist, but a honeybee with no stinger is not a pacifist, because it could not do harm if it wanted. Tubbo is a wasp. He has power. He has venom. Now he has to choose.

The problem is that he has had power before and he knows what he will do. A wasp that stings only when agitated is not a pacifist either.

Tubbo _can_ fight. He will not.

(The problem is that wasps with communities will sting only to defend, but solitary wasps will use their venom to hunt.

The problem is that Technoblade can live with stinging.)

_v. “Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,_

_“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!_

_“You! hypocrite reader!-my similar,-my brother!"_

There are several important things, and Technoblade rips all of them out with a pickaxe. Quackity screams and tears down posters and has scars around his lips. Technoblade calls himself non-violent.

Tubbo did not want this.

He wonders if he ever controlled the hive.

(Technoblade breathes heavy and counts the important things, as there are several to count.

Number one is that Carl is safe. He trudges through the snow back home with Carl’s lead in hand and little bubbles of rage pop in his chest. Cowards. The lot of them.

Number two is that Phil is safe. Hurting a creature that does not hurt you first is the ultimate disgrace.

Number three is that Tommy is in his house. There is not much to think about with this one, only that Tommy has been hurt, and it is natural for a bee to sting when frightened, even if it will get the insect killed.)

_vi. HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME_

_HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME_

The hard part is making.

(The easy part is how it falls to pieces.)

**Author's Note:**

> comments are appreciated and treasured dearly. thanks for reading <3


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